'You'll need to make sure the brass plate is kept bright, the surgery cleaned and to act as your husband's receptionist when he does his morning and evening surgeries.' My duties were thus spelt out by the wife of the senior partner. [more...]

In April 1945 the British army liberated the 60,000 remaining inmates of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Among them were around 200 children, many of them orphans. The banker Eric Warburg and his parents had emigrated from the Blankenese district of Hamburg in 1938. Returning to his family home on the Koesterberg in Blankenese in the summer of 1945, he gave permission to the American Joint Distribution Committee to use his home to accommodate displaced persons. A plan soon emerged to host the surviving children from the concentration camps there, to provide them with an education, and to prepare them for departure to Palestine. [more...]

'Terrorism: Coercive and violent behaviour undertaken to achieve or promote a particular political objective or cause ... Terrorist activity is designed to induce fear through its indiscriminate, arbitrary, and unpredictable acts of violence, often against members of the population at large.' Thus the 2004 edition of The Penguin Encyclopaedia. [more...]

Fed up with the poor performance of Israeli pupils by international standards, Israel's energetic Minister of Education, Limor Livnat, appointed a committee, headed by businessman Shlomo Dovrat, to review the education system and recommend changes. [more...]

Tax concession

Following discussions with the AJR, the British government announced in July that restitution awards made in respect of dormant bank accounts in foreign countries will be exempt from income and capital gains taxes. [more...]